Folks, the following is a promotional piece written by WND.com for the March 2015 edition of its print magazine, Whistleblower. Go HERE to subscribe to Whistleblower–there is a bonus offer for new subscribers–or go HERE obtain just a single copy of the “Hate Racket” issue. To order by phone, call WND at 800-496-3266 (800-4WND-COM). You can also email WND at support@wnd.com.

As an occasional writer for Whistleblower (and WND), I highly recommend the magazine. It is well worth the $39.95 subscription price. Editor David Kupelian does a terrific job in offering a comprehensive take on a critical issue from various perspectives–in this case, the SPLC’s cynical “hate” scam, which has AFTAH among its targets. My family subscribes to Whistleblower and I encourage you to do the same. Or, at the very least, get this “Hate Racket” issue for $7.50 and share it with others. — Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH; Twitter: @PeterLaBarbera

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THE HATE RACKET: How one group cons government into equating Christians and conservatives with Klansmen and Nazis – and rakes in millions doing it!

It never has made sense, and most Americans are at a loss to explain it.

Why – in an era when virtually all violent extremism and terror activity in the U.S. comes from those in the grip of radical Islam – is the government obsessed with “rightwing extremism”?

Likewise, why are the major news media always looking for – one could almost say hoping for – evidence that “rightwing extremists” are the culprits in high-profile terror attacks, as proven by network news reports absurdly suggesting the Boston Marathon bombers and the Aurora, Colo., movie theater mass shooter were actually “rightwing extremists” or “tea party” members.

Even the Obama-era Department of Homeland Security and FBI have been preoccupied with threats of “rightwing extremists,” warning law enforcement to watch out for unstable constitutionalists, radical pro-lifers, violent Second Amendment advocates, “anti-immigrant” activists and, especially, returning military veterans.

With genuine mega-threats to the American homeland looming daily from murderous, genocidal jihadists, why the fixation on phantom “rightwing extremists”?

Meet the Southern Poverty Law Center. This super-wealthy public-interest law firm headquartered in Montgomery, Ala., which decades ago made a name for itself by fighting the Ku Klux Klan, today presents itself as the nation’s premier defender of civil liberties and protector of the innocent from violent extremism. Behind this veil, however, today’s SPLC is revealed to be the wellspring and dominant think tank for outrageously defamatory leftwing attacks on individuals and organizations that embrace traditional Judeo-Christian values.

The group’s primary modus operandi? Demonize and defame mainstream conservatives, Christians and Jews by lumping them together with genuine haters like neo-Nazi Skinheads and the Ku Klux Klan. Then highly publicize those “Hatewatch” lists and “Hate Maps,” soliciting millions of dollars in donations to help SPLC combat all those supposed rightwing “haters” and “extremists” out there.

But now, the SPLC stands exposed as perhaps never before in the sensational March 2015 issue of Whistleblower, titled “THE HATE RACKET.”

Recently, the bubble of illusion surrounding the SPLC burst for millions of Americans when the supposed civil rights organization attacked Dr. Benjamin Carson, the retired pediatric neurosurgeon and likely 2016 GOP presidential contender, by adding him to its “extremist watch list.” Ironically, the soft-spoken, high-achieving, adversity-overcoming Carson is widely considered one of the most positive role models for young black males in modern America.

So, what was Carson’s offense, for which he was – just like many other individuals and organizations before him, including WND – cast as a hateful and potentially dangerous rightwing “extremist” by the SPLC?

Fasten your seat belts: Dr. Carson stated, “Marriage is between a man and a woman.”

“Wait a minute,” said Whistleblower Editor and WND Vice President David Kupelian. “For politely expressing a view identical to the view embraced by virtually every person in the entire world at all times and in all places, except for some people in the U.S. and Europe in just the last few years, Dr. Carson was publicly defamed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and held up to ridicule by being portrayed as akin to the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party.”

Why does all this matter?

“Why would anybody even care,” asked Kupelian, “what some venal, far-left organization says, especially one that is widely criticized – by both the left and the right – for being little more than a huge money racket, frightening rich, old, clueless liberals into believing America will soon be overrun with drooling Klansmen lynching blacks on every street corner if they don’t send big donations to the SPLC?”

It matters because, as “THE HATE RACKET” reveals, this particular far-left organization exerts a huge influence not only on the major news media, but on the United States government, including the Department of Homeland Security. It’s no coincidence that the government’s notion of who constitutes a threat, a hater, an extremist, a potential terrorist, a danger to the American homeland, mirrors that of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Unfortunately, the SPLC’s demonization of supposed “haters” and “extremists” also fixes a target on the backs of many mainstream Christian and conservative Americans and groups. Never was this point more dramatically made than when a confessed domestic terrorist admitted to FBI investigators he was inspired to violently attack the Family Research Council, a mainstream conservative Christian group headquartered for three decades in Washington, D.C., after seeing the FRC identified on the Law Center’s notorious “hate map.”

Here’s how Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, FRC’s executive vice president, describes the scene in the March Whistleblower:

On Aug. 15, 2012, a man went into an office building in downtown Washington, D.C., and shot a building manager – shattering the major bones in his left arm. The shooter, Floyd Lee Corkins II, wanted to kill as many people in the building as he could. Fortunately, his rampage of violence was cut short by the man he shot, Leo Johnson, before he could become a mass murderer of the employees at the Family Research Council.

Corkins was a pro-gay political activist. He told investigators he “wanted to kill the people in the building and then smear a Chick-fil-A sandwich in their face.” Less than a month earlier, Chick-fil-A restaurants had seen a massive, national demonstration of support when it was learned that a foundation associated with the firm’s owners gave some minor financial support to organizations that supported natural marriage. Thus, in Corkins’ mind, the restaurant chain became associated with opposition to his pro-homosexual political agenda.

Corkins entered the Family Research Council with a 9 mm pistol, two ammunition clips of 15 rounds in his front pocket, the rounds in the gun and a box of 50 additional rounds. He also had 15 individually wrapped Chick-fil-A sandwiches. He was not puffing things up when he told his interrogators that he intended “to kill as many people as [he] could.”

Boykin, who was deputy undersecretary of defense for Intelligence under President George W. Bush after serving 36 years in the Army as an original member of Delta Force and commander of the Green Berets, later reflected on the FRC attack: “Nothing speaks to the SPLC’s inhumanity as its behavior after the shooting at FRC. How would you react if you had created a map that was used by a terrorist to attempt to kill dozens of people? Wouldn’t decent people conclude … that you were fortunate to have escaped being forever linked to mass murder? Wouldn’t you change course? Of course, that is what decent people would do, but decent people do not run the SPLC.”

Highlights of “THE HATE RACKET” include:

• “Meet the extremists” by David Kupelian, on why a super-wealthy leftwing group would liken Ben Carson and WND to Klansmen and neo-Nazis

• “Wellspring of manufactured hate: Inside the Southern Poverty Law Center” by James Simpson

• “SPLC steps in it with Ben Carson smear” by Joseph Farah, who says “apology” to one of America’s most respected black leaders’ proves the group is vulnerable to public opinion

• “King of the hate business” by Alexander Cockburn, in which the celebrated left-wing writer exposes what he calls the “arch-salesman of hate mongering, Mr. Morris Dees”

• “Harpers exposes ‘The Church of Morris Dees'” – iconic liberal publication quotes Dees’ business partner as saying, “Morris and I shared the overriding purpose of making a pile of money”

• “Crushing dissent in the name of tolerance” by Robert Knight, who says “the SPLC has long been the U.S. government’s prime source for what constitutes a hate group’

• “Military warned ‘evangelicals’ No. 1 threat” by Jack Minor, on Army briefing that listed Christians as America’s top extremist list, ahead of Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaida and the KKK

• “Obama DHS: ‘Right-wing extremists’ a greater threat than ISIS” by Chelsea Schilling, on a new government report that predicts jihadists aren’t the worst threat for domestic violence in 2015

• “FBI scrubs key ‘hate-crime’ partnership” by Bob Unruh, about what happened after the SPLC was “linked to domestic terrorism in federal court”

• “MSNBC conspiracy theorists” by Joseph Farah, on how the far-left cable network aired an SPLC-assisted attack on WND

• “Amazon urged to blacklist ‘haters'” by Bob Unruh, on SPLC’s audacious attempt to put traditional-values groups out of business

• “The politics of hate” by Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William G. (“Jerry”) Boykin, who says: “Nothing speaks to the SPLC’s inhumanity as its behavior after the shooting” at the Family Research Council

• “The ridiculous ‘hate group’ list” by Robert Spencer, on how repeating the SPLC’s defamatory accusations has “become a staple of every report from lazy leftist journalists”

• “Standing up for Hamas” by Daniel Greenfield, on how the SPLC defends supporters of the genocidal terror group

• “‘Smear artists’? There’s no artistry in SPLC’s smears” by Don Feder, on how the controversial group equates conservatives, from Dinesh D’Souza to David Horowitz, with Klansmen and Nazis

• “Liberal lies, Brian Williams and the SPLC” by Matt Barber, a humorous look at how a possible “win-win” job shake-up might provide a new position for the disgraced NBC anchor

• “Internet in bull’s-eye for new ‘hate speech’ plan” by Jerome Corsi, on a proposal that would evaluate online language and make “recommendations”

One more question: While it’s understandable that conservatives and Christians, whom the SPLC maligns for a living, would oppose the group, why would the left condemn with equal harshness what is, after all, a powerful leftwing organization? Why would the well-known liberal-left magazine Harpers, as well as Alexander Cockburn, one of America’s most celebrated leftwing journalists until his 2012 death, publish withering rebukes of the group? As “THE HATE RACKET” proves, it’s because the SPLC, which started out in the ’70s as a law firm dedicated to defending civil rights, no longer even appears to believe in the causes it once espoused.

It’s all about the money.

After all, when Ben Carson was asked if he thought the SPLC was “crooked,” he replied, “Oh, definitely. Certainly that’s been the impression of everybody I’ve heard from.”